Black Gloves
Something new was apparently coming-- just not made by AK.
The years of slow, subtle, insidious and subconscious training may be starting to pay off! Father's Day came early. And breathed new life into my AK120, even if if didn't fix my GUI issues. Since I will be traveling for business on Father's Day, it came a bit early in my house. And my ladies (the 3 of them) gifted me with a new glove. Not the leather kind. It was the
Glove Audio A1 DAC/Amp by Centrance. It's made to fit ((only) the AK100 and AK 120 (original, not Mk II). It locks in the AK and then offloads the DAC and amp functions. The DAC is excellent (goes up to 196/24) and is compatible with DSD. The amp is supposed to be able to comfortably push all of the Audeze's, etc. oh, and it has balanced output (as well as single-ended). Since it off-loads the DAC and amp functions, the AK's battery lasts much longer and it has a 10 hr run time which now the AK should be up to. I only have an hour or so on it and it is already sounding really great. So far I've only tried my IEMs (Shure SE 535 Ltd with Double Helix wires- see photos). A touch of warmth and really nice bass. Not boom-boom bass- more like the guy playing the upright moved about 2 feet closer to you. So my travel, flying (and surviving at the mall with my daughters) rig has gotten some new like breathed into it. It's a really nice compact package - bigger the AK but very manageable. Haven't tried it with full-size headphones yet but will report back when I do.
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Office/Music Room
Dynaudio Heritage Special. Uptone Audio EtherRegen Ethernet Switch. Akasa NUC 10i7 with Roon Rock. Bryston BDP-3 Digital Music Player (with 4 Tb Internal SSD and Synology DS920+ NAS)-->Holo Audio May Kitsune Edition DAC-->Shunyata Sigma USB—>Gryphon Diablo 120 Integreted Amp w Transpatent XL PC. Oppo BDP-105D and BDP-203. Power: Shunyata Hydra Sigma S12 PD. Additional Cabling: WW Silver Electra PC, WW Electra PC, Shunyata Venom 3 PC. Digital: WW Starlight Ethernet, WW Gold Starlight AES-EBU, WW Platinum Starlight USB. IC and Speaker: WW Eclipse 8.
Bedroom System
Ipad with MusicStreamer App-->Schiit Jotunheim DAC/Amp—>Audeze LCD-XC, Focal for Bentley Radiance HO, Massdrop E-MU Teak HP. AK SE 200 DAP.
Mobile Survival Kit
Astell & Kern SP1000M. Noble Kaiser Encore IEM with Double Helix Balanced cable, Westone W80 IEM w ALOaudio Ref 8 cable, Westone W60 IEM, Shure se535 Ltd with Westone Bluetooth Wireless cable-amp. Mark Levinson No. 5909 Wireless HP.
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